Vietnam Day 2 & 3 (plus a little Malaysia)

Andrew and I woke up on Day 2 planning to go to the Cu Chin tunnels.  After we woke up and had a lazy breakfast, we decided to put it of until the last day.  We most of the day walking around, seeing the sites, eating the food, and shopping.  My pictures cover most of the sites we saw.  The one thing it really doesn’t show is Ben Thanh market.  This place was a veritable zoo of goods.  You could buy pirated DVDs and video games right next to a butcher who would have a stall next to a jeweler.  We bought things from all over the city but most of my tourist trap gifts came from here.  I bought some DVDs for about a dollar each, some (fake) Dior shades, and some other knickknacks.  In terms of quality purchases, I bought a engraved stone box, a real north face backpack on the cheap and a painting of Halong Bay.  I suggest you search Google images just to see how amazing Halong Bay truly is.

Andrew and I also sampled a lot of the local food.  Which means a lot of beef noodles and coffee.  I’ve recently (the last year) started to drink coffee and since I arrived in Singapore I’ve been drinking my coffee black.  This was an almost impossible task to do with Vietnamese coffee.  I was so think and rich.  I felt like I was trying to drink some sort of coffee desert pie.  But boy was it flavorful, I’ve never had coffee quite like this.  I won’t say it was better than Dunks because they really aren’t even the same drink.

Our hotel, while not swank, was centrally located which made walking around to all the sites very easy.  Saigon is a walking city s long as you pay attention when you cross the street.  We went to every major stop in all of the tour guides/maps we had.  I won’t go in depth to each site, especially the war history museum, but the pictures should give you a very good idea.

After a day of walking around Andrew and I stayed closer to our hotel for the adult beverages.  There was a small neighborhood dedicated to servicing the backpacking crowd.  As I’m sure some of you could guess, the bars we walked into were full of Aussies drinking for two.  Andrew and I didn’t stay out too late as we found out we had to be at the travel agent around the corner at 7AM for our trip to the tunnels the next day.

We woke to two small coffees each which should have kept me going all day.  Even with this super-brew coursing through our veins, Andrew and I slept the entire bus ride out to the tunnels.  From our best guess, it was about two hours.   My favorite part of the countryside were the rows upon rows of rubber trees.

I thought the tunnels were going to be a quiet, if not peaceful, stop in the countryside.  As soon as I stepped off the bus I heard gunshots from the firing range.  I guess I should have expected that.  We were also subjected to a 15 minute propaganda video before the tour which talked about the “merciless American bombs” and other brilliant turns of phrase.

Most of the tour talked about the everyday life of the guerrilla fighter which was rather interesting.  We also learned about some of the “ingenious” was he fought.  It was all very detailed and I’ll spare you the details.  Finally, after a trip to the gift shop and firing range (where I dabbled), it was off to the tunnels.

These things were very small even after being enlarged for the fat American tourist crowd.  A lot of people didn’t make the trek due to a fear of small dark places.  You’ll see in my pictures that it look like mid-day in those things.  That’s my flash.  It was pitch black and I duck-walked about 200 yards in a murky maze.  I can’t imagine living in those things.

We left countryside and headed back into the city.  Andrew and I spent one more night on the town and caught a early morning flight the next day.  All in all, I highly recommend a stop in the Saigon area of Vietnam for about two days.  I don’t think it needs more unless you want to spend an extended time in the countryside.  The city is just to wild and dirty.  I did enjoy my time there, but much like the tunnels, I can’t imagine living in a place like that.

On another note,  I went to Johor Bahru in Malaysia on Saturday.  It is a small city just on the other side of the causway leading out of Singapore.  I tossed a few quick pictures up in the Random Media Section but they are rather lame.  It was a good day trip involving copious amount of seafood at a hawker center and a few Tiger Beers at a Napali cafe.  I may make a couple more trip up there as it is super easy to get to and the prices make it very much worth the trip.  I had all the shrimp and chili crab I could eat for about US$13.

I hope everyone is doing well and I’ll be home before you know it!!!  Can you believe it has been 4 months already?!?!

Love,

BD